God Worked at SEEK 2019

January 3-7, 2019. During these days, I was in Indianapolis, IN, for a conference presented by the Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS). The name of this conference was SEEK 2019. I’ll go more into detail about SEEK in a post next week. So in today’s post, I’d like to focus on how God reached me during this conference.

It all started before I left for Indy.

In prayer probably Jan. 1st or 2nd, I gave God the permission to work in whatever way He needed to during this conference. For a moment, I was a bit hesitant in doing this and allowing God to have free-rein because I didn’t want something bad to happen (like the passing of a family member, for example). But, I knew that even if something bad did happen, God would be able to bring good out of it. So I went ahead and gave Him full permission to do what He needed to do.

Thursday, January 3, 2019

I was going to go to Adoration for this session of prayer, but they didn’t have Jesus out in monstrance yet, so I found a secluded corner and prayed there.

I had some incredibly heartfelt prayer, to the point of crying. I won’t get into much detail, but it was just me reaching out to Jesus. And during this time, Jesus was reminding me to be vulnerable and that He won’t break me heart.

Friday, January 4, 2019

I went into Adoration I guess during the lunch break. And in this period of prayer, Jesus reminded me of what He will and will not allow on His end of our relationship. And He kept reminding me to be vulnerable with Him with even the deepest things in my heart as well as with my fears.

Saturday, January 5, 2019

I went to prayer again during our lunch break. And this time, Jesus told me about what He’d do for our relationship and how He sees me.

During the dinner break that night, I went back into the Chapel. He was telling me about His existence being real and to not be afraid of being vulnerable with Him.

Later that night, we had a conference wide Adoration. During this time, I read through the “I Thirst” meditation written by Mother Theresa. And I feel as if Jesus was reaching out to me through some of the phrases in that meditation. And towards the end of Adoration, I realized that during the conference, progress had been made in my relationship with Him. And that He had been working just like I asked Him to.

Sunday, January 6, 2019

During the first session of prayer, I read back over my notes from Saturday’s prayer and Adoration notes. Then I had the thought that God knows me better than I know me.

I returned to the Chapel later in the day. I was reminded during this time that God is in love with me. And before leaving the Chapel, I listened to “I Can’t Help Falling In Love With You,” imagining God was the one singing it to me.

Monday, January 7, 2019

The conference ended in the late morning/early afternoon, so I didn’t pray at the conference. But since a friend and I were staying with a friend who lives in Indy, I kept notes of prayer in my SEEK notebook.

I prayed during some downtime. During this time, I read part of The Name of God is Mercy and Isaiah 12. While reading in Mercy, I read that we need to reach out to the marginalized. And in this, I was reminded that I already have this skill because of how I worked at camp in 2017.

Later, my friends and I were going to hang out in and walk around Downtown Indy. The first place we visited after parking was a church by the name of St. John the Evangelist. During this time of prayer, I realized that I wanted to write my own story. Then God told me that God-written stories are more beautiful. And He struck a chord in asking how writing my own story was going. And He told me that He wants to handle the stress and take it away from me and onto Himself. Then He told me that all the hesitancies and distrust about and in Him are all lies from the enemy.

Prayer since SEEK

The main prayer routine I’ve had since SEEK has been verbal prayer, reading in The Name of God is Mercy and reading a Scripture passage. And I’ve tried to remember, act on, and work on things that I experienced or God told me at the conference.

And I hope that what happened at SEEK doesn’t go away and that I can continue to build on my experiences there.